Etak Navigator

From: Patrick Rigney <patrick_at_evocative.com>
Date: Mon Oct 7 14:36:00 2002

Joe,

Back in the mid-80's, Etak began shipping what I believe is the first
commercially available in-vehicle navigation system. This system was the
precursor to today's driver-guidance systems, and Etak's patents are
probably in most if not all of them. The original Etak Navigator was a
specially-packaged 286 system with 256MB RAM and 256MB ROM, and a four-track
tape drive on which some of the "OS" and the digital maps were stored. The
tapes didn't hold much, so for the San Francisco area, for example, you had
four or five tapes--when you drove off the end of the map, you changed tapes
to match your new location. The map moved as you drove, just like today's
systems, but instead of the fancy color raster display, it had a green
vector display. It had address geocoding (the ability to convert a street
address to a lat/long point). It worked by using a compass mounted
somewhere in the car (typically inside the headliner) and two wheel sensors
on the rear wheels (which magnetic strips installed on the wheel rims
themselves). The system worked by "dead reckoning" (actually "ded.
reckoning" for "deduced"), which basically meant that you told it where you
were when you first installed it, and then took it on a short calibration
drive, and from then on, the system self-corrected and got increasingly
better at following the map. No GPS at that time... that came much later,
and obviously improved the accuracy and simplicity of the system.

For those of you in the San Francisco area during the 70's and 80's, you
could buy these at various auto-stereo places for around $3000-$3500
installed (does anyone remember Steven Matthew David, owner of Matthews TV
and Stereo, top of the hill, Daly City! :-)) It was also used in emergency
vehicles: coupled with a data radio, a central dispatch could watch a moving
display of paramedic and fire vehicles driving around.

Patrick

> -----Original Message-----
> From: cctalk-admin_at_classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-admin_at_classiccmp.org]On
> Behalf Of Joe
> Sent: Monday, October 07, 2002 2:52 PM
> To: cctalk_at_classiccmp.org
> Subject: Re: Etak Navigator
>
>
> What the heck is an Etak Navigator and why does it have a tape drive?
>
> Joe
>
> At 11:39 AM 10/7/02 -0700, you wrote:
> >I have an Etak Navigator, serial number 67, that was at one time
> installed
> >in my car, but many years ago was removed and relegated to a box
> in storage.
> >I pulled it out a few months ago, but I have no idea where the tape drive
> >is. I've moved many times since I worked there. I've contacted
> Etak (now
> >Tele Atlas), but so far my inquiries have fallen on deaf ears.
> Does anyone
> >out there happen to have a tape drive, or the whole system, that
> they'd be
> >willing to sell/trade/etc? TIA, Patrick
> >
> >
>
>
>
Received on Mon Oct 07 2002 - 14:36:00 BST